1. Field of Invention
This invention generally relates to a shop floor control system that tracks, controls and reports information relating to the operation of a factory. In particular, this invention is directed to a graphical user interface for a shop floor control system. Specifically, this invention is directed to a graphical user interface that represents the physical layout of the factory.
2. Description of Related Art
A shop floor control system is an industry standard term describing a computer-based system that tracks, controls and reports information related to the operation of a factory. Shop floor control systems typically track inventory, production and labor hours. Traditionally, the conventional shop floor control systems have been accessed by employees through a set of menus, including pull down menus, data entry forms, including dialog boxes, and browsers.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,398,336 and 5,548,756 to Tantry et al. (which share the same specification) describe an object-oriented architecture for a factory floor management system that models factory floor entities as factory objects within a relational database. Workers on the factory floor interact with the factory floor management system through X-terminal or bar code devices. The workers"" interactions with these devices generate database service requests that are used to retrieve, manipulate and update data stored within the relational database. U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,857 to Gimza describes a shop floor control method and system having a menu-based user interface employed by the interface units of the system.
This invention provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system.
This invention further provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system that graphically represents the factory, including individual production machines, storage locations, offices and other pertinent areas.
This invention additionally provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system that uses selectable icons to represent the individual factory entities or elements, such as the production machines, storage locations, offices and other pertinent areas and elements of the factory.
This invention additionally provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system that displays areas of the factory, where the selectable icons are positioned within the interface at relative locations corresponding to the locations on the factory floor occupied by the represented element.
This invention further provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system where the selectable icons, when selected, allow information relating to the represented factory element within the shop floor control system to be displayed and/or updated.
This invention also provides a graphical user interface shop floor control system where the selectable icons are color-encoded according to the status of the represented factory element.
In the graphical user interface shop floor control system of this invention, a company, and particularly a factory, are represented at different levels of detail. A main menu screen of the graphical user interface shop floor control system provides buttons for accessing subscreens for particular portions of the factory, or more generally, the company. A manufacturing menu screen accessible through a manufacturing button of the main menu provides manufacturing-specific buttons providing access to different schedules, statistical analyses, supplies and inventories and the like. Most importantly, the manufacturing menu provides a shop layout button that provides access to factory screens that represent the actual physical layout of a factory at different levels of detail. Thus, the main menu screen and the various menus immediately under the main menu, such as the manufacturing menu screen, provide differing levels of details of the organizational structure of the company, while the shop layout screens provide differing levels of detail of the physical structure of the factory. A first shop layout screen of the shop floor graphical user interface depicts a factory at a first level of detail. Additional shop layout screens of the shop floor graphical user interface depict portions of the factory shown in the first level at increasing levels of detail, until a shop floor screen of the shop floor graphical user interface control system is reached.
At each level of detail, the displayed shop layout screen of the graphical user interface shop floor control system contains a scale representation of the corresponding portion of the factory. Displayed entities or elements of the factory having corresponding screens in the graphical user interface shop floor control system are represented by selectable icons. The selectable icons have shapes or graphics that correspond to the actual shapes or appearances, respectively, of the represented entities or elements. Thus, on the first shop layout screen, the entire factory site is represented, in scale, with each area of the factory having its own screen in the graphical user interface shop floor control system represented by either a correspondingly-shaped icon or an icon containing a graphic corresponding to an appearance of the represented area. In a small factory, it is likely the next level of detail contains the shop floor screens for the actual shop floors of the factory, and the selectable icons on the first level screen represent those shop floors. In a very large factory, there may be intermediate level screens between the first level screen and the shop floor screens.
Each shop floor screen depicts the actual shop floor of the factory and includes icons representing the various machines, storage locations, offices and other factory elements of the shop floor. These icons are positioned at locations within the shop floor screen corresponding to the actual locations on the shop floor occupied by the represented factory elements. Each of the icons representing the various factory elements of the depicted shop floor either is shaped according to the actual shape of the represented factory element, or includes a graphic modeled after the represented factory element, or both. Each icon can be shown using a color coding that represents the actual status of the represented element. Most icons on the shop floor screen are selectable. The shop floor screen also includes a number of global function buttons that control the user""s interaction with the selectable icons representing the factory elements of the depicted shop floor.
Depending on the function button selected, different control events or dialogue boxes are immediately displayed, or are displayed once one of the selectable icons is selected. These dialogue boxes include a machine status screen that allows the user to view and update the status of a machine element of the factory; a containers screen that allows the user to view and update data regarding containers stored within a storage area of the factory; a machine log-in screen that allows a user to determine which employees are logged into the various machines or onto other elements of the factory; a production screen that allows a user to assign new production jobs to various machine elements of the factory floor; and a machine log screen that allows maintenance on the machine elements of the factory floor to be scheduled and recorded.
Depending on the size and nature of the factory, additional shop layout screens for other functions can also be implemented. Such screens can include materials receiving and shipping docks, materials transport systems and the like. Similarly, other organizational portions of the company, such as sales, shipping and receiving, materials, supplies, purchasing, personnel, accounting and the like can have subsidiary screens allowing particular data to be viewed and/or entered into the graphical user interface shop floor control system of this invention, and providing physical layouts of the offices of the company corresponding to these organizational structures.
Additionally, the various layout screens do not have to be static. That is, various animations can be provided for these layout screens to represent movement of materials both on the shop floor and acceptance of movement information corresponding to the moved materials by the graphical user interface shop floor control system. Furthermore, such movement information is not limited to materials but could include purchase orders and the like. Such animations also can include status-dependent animations of the various factory element icons of the various layout screens. Similarly, the data entry screens do not need to be static, but can import and display information on the various data entry screens from bar code scanners, keyboards, scales, and the like, and from the database of the graphical user interface shop floor control system. Moreover, one or more of the various selectable icons of the graphical user interface shop floor control system of this invention can be color encoded based on an assigned status of the underlying factory element represented by a particular selectable icon.
The shop floor screen also allows the status of machines to be changed, employees to be logged onto various machines; and data concerning the location of materials on the shop floor to be updated.
These and other features and advantages of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.